fairvis wrote:Lars, I'm returning to Cleveland in a few weeks for Christmas after spending 6 months overseas. Where would you eat your first "Cleveland" meal after subsisting on British food for nearly half a year?

I'm actually going to be in Manchester Monday night.

Speaking of which, Lars, what should one eat when in her Magesty's United Kingdom? Besides beer that it, I've got that covered.

Indian food. The curries here are wonderful, and relatively inexpensive for a decent meal.

If you're staying near the city centre, EastZEast is a really nice place for a curry. Then again, you can always run down the Curry Mile (which is south of the university and city centre) and have all the choices in the world to go with. Head out for a drink at Lass O'Gowrie- a generally excellent guest ale selection.

What do you see as the destiny of our human civilization? I'm looking more from a societal standpoint, and a governing standpoint and am going to say we assume we do not blow ourselves to bits to the point of extinction. I leave the assumption of global population numbers up to you. Do you see civilization as it gets presented in sci-fi at times, or as a one world government with restrictive societal controls, or as us somehow sending exploratory groups to set up camp on another planet?

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"

"Choice" is the operative word here. When we'd go hunting in S. Ohio before the effing vet who owned 360 acres selfishly died at 88yrs young, we drank instant coffee "by choice". It was simply a caffeine delivery system that worked just as well as good stuff in kick starting the system.

What do you see as the destiny of our human civilization? I'm looking more from a societal standpoint, and a governing standpoint and am going to say we assume we do not blow ourselves to bits to the point of extinction. I leave the assumption of global population numbers up to you. Do you see civilization as it gets presented in sci-fi at times, or as a one world government with restrictive societal controls, or as us somehow sending exploratory groups to set up camp on another planet?

Blah fucking blah. Another FUDU question he only wants answered so he can point out the flaws in the answer he gets.

What do you see as the destiny of our human civilization? I'm looking more from a societal standpoint, and a governing standpoint and am going to say we assume we do not blow ourselves to bits to the point of extinction. I leave the assumption of global population numbers up to you. Do you see civilization as it gets presented in sci-fi at times, or as a one world government with restrictive societal controls, or as us somehow sending exploratory groups to set up camp on another planet?

With the advance of world population and the ever-decreasing gap in communication barriers due to instant media, the only 2 eventualities are World Government or Death By World War.

Call it the United Countries of Earth if you will. And, really, the only way that ever gets established would be as a democracy, so fear not Isolationists.

fairvis wrote:Lars, I'm returning to Cleveland in a few weeks for Christmas after spending 6 months overseas. Where would you eat your first "Cleveland" meal after subsisting on British food for nearly half a year?

I'm actually going to be in Manchester Monday night.

Speaking of which, Lars, what should one eat when in her Magesty's United Kingdom? Besides beer that it, I've got that covered.

Indian food. The curries here are wonderful, and relatively inexpensive for a decent meal.

If you're staying near the city centre, EastZEast is a really nice place for a curry. Then again, you can always run down the Curry Mile (which is south of the university and city centre) and have all the choices in the world to go with. Head out for a drink at Lass O'Gowrie- a generally excellent guest ale selection.

This is really the only correct answer to that question. The Indian food there is off the charts excellent, and everything else is pretty much off the charts the other way.

In your opinion which 5 songs have withstood the test of time the best? Whether it be the lyrics, the message or musically. For the purpose of being practical let's keep it to music from the 20th and 21st centuries only.

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"

justmebd wrote:I'll take over the column and my promise to you is I will call someone an asshole every week.

Or is that setting my sights too low?

If you only call one person a pejorative only as harsh as "asshole" you're going to be too politically correct.

Now if you're talking as answers to the questions, then that could be interesting. Take this for example:

justmebd, In your opinion which 5 songs have withstood the test of time the best? Whether it be the lyrics, the message or musically. For the purpose of being practical let's keep it to music from the 20th and 21st centuries only.What sort of asshole are you that you need to limit good music to the last 100 years or so? Is Bethoven's 5th not so completely revolutionary of a piece that we can clearly ascribe it to be one of the all-time greatest pieces of music that has and clearly will stand the test of time? Was not the genius there far greater than anything Zeppelin or the Stones has ever produced?

And what sort of asshole needs to rank music? Your question is like using the BCS to determine a national champion, and arbitrarily excluding one of the two undefeated teams from the process for... well, no discernable moral reason. Except that music can't compete head to head on a field, and it really doesn't matter if Stairway to Heaven is a better or worse song than Cocaine. Because it's a worse song, and yet it has a chance of making the top five "test of time" list.

So if you're doing "test of time" I'd apply the Genghis Khan test. This test measures a man's greatness by the biological test, meaning hw many of his progeny survive to breed another day. Approximately .5% of the world's population - 16 million people - are genetically linked directly to Khan. That's fucking incredible. So in raking musical greatness, I would rank the songs whose children survive today, via emulation of style or content. That ranking is clearly and unarguably as follows:

1) Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues. You take any living rock band, or any great rock band of all time, and you trace back their influences, and the people their influences were influenced by... and you get the Genghis Khan of Rock, Robert Johnson. Not a single relevant band ever was not in some way influenced by this man, and this is his hallmark offering. And the guitar work in it is sick, even today.

2) Rapper's Delight, The Sugar Hill Gang. This song didn't invent rap, but it did give birth to hip-hop and popularize the genre. Spew whatever ignorance you want about the genre, all of which is wrong by the way, you cannot deny the impact hip hop has had on culture globally. And is it still relevant today? Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn (say what?)... every person in the world knows that lyric.

3) Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley and the Comets. The first rock and roll song ever. I think that turned out pretty well. Still a fun song too.

4) No Fun, The Stooges. The Stooges ushered in all music that would become punk, grunge, alt rock, and/or hard rock (which would eventually become metal). No Fun was the most influential of their earliest work.

5) Hound Dog, Big Mama Thornton. No, not Elvis, Big Mama Thornton. He got that from her, and this song helped him become an icon. Every other pop icon can throw back to Elvis, and his influence fusing rock and blues is still felt today. Big Mama Thornton is Elvis' mama, therefore she gets the Khan points, not him.

justmebd wrote:I'll take over the column and my promise to you is I will call someone an asshole every week.

Or is that setting my sights too low?

If you only call one person a pejorative only as harsh as "asshole" you're going to be too politically correct.

Now if you're talking as answers to the questions, then that could be interesting. Take this for example:

justmebd, In your opinion which 5 songs have withstood the test of time the best? Whether it be the lyrics, the message or musically. For the purpose of being practical let's keep it to music from the 20th and 21st centuries only.What sort of asshole are you that you need to limit good music to the last 100 years or so? Is Bethoven's 5th not so completely revolutionary of a piece that we can clearly ascribe it to be one of the all-time greatest pieces of music that has and clearly will stand the test of time? Was not the genius there far greater than anything Zeppelin or the Stones has ever produced?

And what sort of asshole needs to rank music? Your question is like using the BCS to determine a national champion, and arbitrarily excluding one of the two undefeated teams from the process for... well, no discernable moral reason. Except that music can't compete head to head on a field, and it really doesn't matter if Stairway to Heaven is a better or worse song than Cocaine. Because it's a worse song, and yet it has a chance of making the top five "test of time" list.

So if you're doing "test of time" I'd apply the Genghis Khan test. This test measures a man's greatness by the biological test, meaning hw many of his progeny survive to breed another day. Approximately .5% of the world's population - 16 million people - are genetically linked directly to Khan. That's fucking incredible. So in raking musical greatness, I would rank the songs whose children survive today, via emulation of style or content. That ranking is clearly and unarguably as follows:

1) Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues. You take any living rock band, or any great rock band of all time, and you trace back their influences, and the people their influences were influenced by... and you get the Genghis Khan of Rock, Robert Johnson. Not a single relevant band ever was not in some way influenced by this man, and this is his hallmark offering. And the guitar work in it is sick, even today.

2) Rapper's Delight, The Sugar Hill Gang. This song didn't invent rap, but it did give birth to hip-hop and popularize the genre. Spew whatever ignorance you want about the genre, all of which is wrong by the way, you cannot deny the impact hip hop has had on culture globally. And is it still relevant today? Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn (say what?)... every person in the world knows that lyric.

3) Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley and the Comets. The first rock and roll song ever. I think that turned out pretty well. Still a fun song too.

4) No Fun, The Stooges. The Stooges ushered in all music that would become punk, grunge, alt rock, and/or hard rock (which would eventually become metal). No Fun was the most influential of their earliest work.

5) Hound Dog, Big Mama Thornton. No, not Elvis, Big Mama Thornton. He got that from her, and this song helped him become an icon. Every other pop icon can throw back to Elvis, and his influence fusing rock and blues is still felt today. Big Mama Thornton is Elvis' mama, therefore she gets the Khan points, not him.

Bravo, Sir!!I could channel my inner Al Swearengen. Believe me, I do it at work all the time at every old cuntfuck who wanders in and decides shopping for alcohol is either:A. TOO HARD!!!B. Prohibition still is in effect, so they make sure to tell me this booze is not for them -- like I give a flying fuck.